Creating a Design from Meshery Catalog Templates
The catalog is a public collection of designs for cloud native infrastructure. Browsing it needs no account. Cloning does. This page walks through finding a design, trying it without changing anything, and cloning it into your workspace as a private copy.
Cloning a design from a template in the Meshery Catalog 🔗
Cloning needs the Clone Design permission. These built-in roles hold it, and they also hold View Designs: the User role, Team Admin, Workspace Admin, Organization Admin, and Provider Admin. If your role lacks Clone Design, the clone action is shown disabled.
- Open the catalog. You can do this before you have an account. To clone, sign in to Layer5 Cloud first. If you do not have an account, follow Setting up a Layer5 account.
- Search by technology or type. Sort by Most Cloned or Most Downloaded to see what other people rely on most. Each design card shows a summary. Opening a design shows its full details. You can also download a design to work with it outside Layer5 Cloud.
- Pick the organization and the workspace the copy should land in, for example My Workspace in My Organization. A clone lands in the workspace you have selected, in the organization you have selected. You must have one specific organization selected. Cloning in the all-organizations scope is refused.
- Clone the design from its catalog entry.
Layer5 Cloud then creates your copy:
| Property of the clone | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | The original name followed by " (Copy)", for example “My App (Copy)” |
| Owner | You |
| Visibility | Private to you |
| Location | Your selected workspace in your selected organization |
| Content | The original’s catalog data and file location, converted to the current design format |
Cloning also counts toward the original: Layer5 Cloud records a clone event on the original design, which feeds the catalog’s Most Cloned sort and the catalog leaderboard. If this is the first design you own, your profile earns the first-design badge.
You can also publish your own design to the catalog.
Open a design in the Playground 🔗
Before you commit to a copy, open the design in the Playground. Open in Playground opens the design in a new browser tab in Kanvas on the Meshery Playground, loaded straight from the catalog. Nothing is cloned and nothing lands in your workspace.
When cloning is refused 🔗
| Situation | Result |
|---|---|
| The design is not Published or Public | Refused with HTTP 403 (“unauthorized to clone design”). Only published or public designs can be cloned. |
| The all-organizations scope is selected | Refused with HTTP 400 (“Creating designs is not allowed for orgID all”). |
| No organization is selected | Refused with HTTP 400 (“orgID is not provided”). |
| Your role lacks Clone Design | The clone action is disabled. |
What a clone is 🔗
A clone is a separate, private design that you own. It starts from the original’s content and lives in your workspace, where you work on it like any other design you own. Opening a design in the Playground creates nothing in your account.
Your copy is ready when a design named after the original with " (Copy)" appended appears in the workspace you selected, owned by you and private.
To move that copy into a workspace your team shares, follow Set up your organization. To edit it, open Kanvas. How the catalog publishes and lists designs is covered in Catalog.